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Elements of Westfest Reviews

This post is in partnership with Zoom, who has, or will post some of the many photos she took that may or may not illustrate some or all of this review.

The Food: Brunch at the Newport, home of the world famous Elvis Sighting Society. Interesting bit of trivia – Elvis has never actually been sighted at the Newport; but Elvis’ mother has been there and so has Bill Clinton’s mother. The place was packed.. The food was edible. The spoons were sticky. Our server, Yuri, was congenial.

The Music: The cheek-pinchingly adorable, Andrea Simms-Karp did a luscious 30-minute set under sunny skies and then all hell broke loose, so we didn’t hear anyone else. But, if you don’t already have Andrea’s CD, Sleeper, you really should get it. It’s available from her website

The Weather: An awesome sound and light show. And so totally unexpected. There we were basking under a blue, cloudless sky one minute and then suddenly it was dark. And then it rained like a mo-fu. Thunder exploded, lightening cracked and the wind whipped loose stuff all over the place. Zoom and a bunch of other people screamed once at a particularly deafening thunderclap. I didn’t because I’m cool in the face of adversity or maybe because my reflexes aren’t so good.

The Dogs: There were a lot of dogs. There was an 180-lb great Dane named, Duke and a teeny little Yorkie pup whose name I didn’t catch because Mortie (Andrea’s bull-dog pup) was slobbering all over him/her. Mortie is really insanely cute. And, he very handily comes with a lot of extra skin which is fun to push up and down his body.

The Rain Shelters: Almost no one had umbrellas or raincoats, so they all had to make mad dashes for the nearest shelter. We sampled 3. The first was a big tent with lots of stuff to look at and buy, but since we were squished way to the back, we were forced to become overly-familiar with scented soaps. Then it sort of stopped raining so we moved on. Then it started again, so we ducked into a commercial building which turned out to be the Westboro condo sales office. We were there long enough to almost buy a condo. Then it stopped raining a bit and we left. Then it started again and we ended up under an awning populated by two randy old men. They said, “Welcome to the looooove tent. Stay as long as you want. Stay all night. We have a bench.” They said some other stuff too, and we smiled and said stuff back and then we ran out into the rain to find a coffee shop.

The Companion: Zoom was an excellent Westfest companion. She is full of amusing and astonishing anecdotes, a good source of Ottawa lore and an extremely knowledgeable groundhogist. On parting she very excitedly told me she was attending a Pork Lunch the next day. “What?” I said, confused. “What, what.” she answered equally confused. “What are you attending tomorrow?” I said, thinking she couldn’t possibly be that excited at the prospect of a pork lunch. “A Book Launch,” she said. “Oooooohhhhhh,” said I.

Excellent synopsis, XUP. I will try to do it justice with a few photos later today.

J, we had ourselves half-convinced that the cute young blonde girl sitting in front of us during Andrea’s set was you because she matched our mental image of you. AND she had a nice new metallic water bottle, just like you. But I guess it wasn’t you, since you weren’t there.